Verizon iPhone 4 arriving, dictated by perception, not accuracy

Who needs a Verizon iPhone? It’s coming soon, but tentatively count me out. I just drove halfway across the country, including some long stretches of nothing but road. And aside from one brief stretch of about fifteen minutes while passing through some mountains, I had a signal on my iPhone 4 the entire time. Here’s the funny thing: this fact won’t surprise anyone with their iPhone, as it generally matches with the experiences of iPhone users nationwide. But when it comes to Verizon users, I wouldn’t even expect any of them to believe that I could traverse the countryside and keep my AT&T signal for greater than 99% of my travels. Forget about being surprised, as the typical Verizon user is simply incapable of believing that such a thing is possible. After all, while it matches up with what iPhone users have to say about their iPhone experiences, it simply doesn’t square with what Verizon customers somehow think they’re seeing and hearing from iPhone users (here’s more on the Verizon iPhone 4 and 5).

There’s no point, of course, in trying to convince either side otherwise. iPhone users have their own experiences as well as the experiences of their fellow iPhone users, which tell them that while AT&T is no friend of the iPhone platform when it comes to feature rollouts and such, the AT&T network isn’t an issue either. And then there are Verizon customers, who have spent so many years talking themselves out of switching to AT&T to get an iPhone that they now believe their own rationalizations: they imagine iPhone users having reception issues where none exist, or they latch onto the occasional atypical story and attempt to apply it to the entire platform. But none of that matters, of course. Verizon customers’ perception of the AT&T iPhone experience is irrevocably etched in stone, and in fact has been in many of their minds going all the way back to before the iPhone even hit the market. Some Verizon customers never have gotten past the feeling of betrayal from when Apple introduced the iPhone and then immediately drove a stake through their hearts by inexplicably announcing that it would be AT&T only. But whether Verizon customers have an accurate picture of the 2007-2010 iPhone experience (and they do not, by a million miles), none of that adds up to anything. In the end, all that matters is that they now be given access to their precious Verizon iPhone 4 so that they can now join the party. Even if the excuses which Verizon customers have floated over the past few years for dodging the iPhone have ranged from silly to irrelevant to downright fabricated, their unchangeable perception dictates that a Verizon iPhone come to market if Apple wants to make a sale to these folks. Arguments over who’s been more silly along the way – Apple for keeping the iPhone tied to one carrier, or Verizon customers for talking themselves out of an iPhone through borderline delusional behavior – is at this point secondary. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another half of the country to drive across, during which I once again expect to have a signal on my iPhone 4 for virtually all of it. Not that I expect any of you Verizon fanatics reading this to believe me. Here’s more on the Verizon iPhone. 02.01.2011